Unofficial Poll

 With the accuracy of the various political polls in question the cookie poll is probably just as valid as the rest. It started as a joke in 2008 between the Philadelphia bakery and their customers but has taken on a life of its own. The cookies in question are 4 inch sugar cookies decorated in blue and white sprinkles for Harris 2024 and red and white sprinkles with trump 2024. They receive orders from all across the US plus people who drive hundreds of miles to pick up their orders. Since the beginning the poll has only been wrong once even though there is no science behind it, or maybe because there's no science behind it? 

Pronunciation

 Gyros are a tasty Greek dish but most people have been pronouncing the name wrong. I've heard gyro, hero, guy-ro and other iterations that were also close but no cigar. Here's where it gets tricky since there are apparently two, possibly three acceptable ways to say gyro, yee-ros, jee-row, or zhee-row, the last one needs a little explaining though I'm not certain I have it right but what it sounds like to me is an elongated g crossed with a z. My advice is to use one of the other pronunciations! 

It's All French To Me

English is a Germanic language but it also borrows from other languages like French. Many of our everyday words have roots in French which is a Romance language meaning most of it stems from Latin. Today's post will list 10 common words with French origins including: denim, honesty, advice, manicure, table, army, money, solider, debut, and beef, got to love those French words! 

 

Will Speak

 Shakespeare is remembered as a prolific poet and playwright but he also contributed over 1,700 words and expressions to the English language. Today's post will list some of the words he invented, reused, and modified, some will seem too modern to belong to him but alas they do! This is just a short list of ten words/phrases attributed to Shakespeare: Lonely, good riddance, gossip, brave new world, hazel, night owl, bandit, green-eyed monster, Jessica, and unfriend. Clever dude. 

Pre-Memes

 Long before modern day cat memes in the early 20th century it was cat postcards. Postcards in the 19th and 20th centuries were the social media of the time, they were faster and cheaper than letters and they didn't require a lot of thought or time to compose. They also shared another link to current social media, people thought postcards were rotting the minds of the masses, "a disease in the public bloodstream", a "fresh terror", a "Frankenstein's monster" not to mention complaints about how they affected people's reading and writing skills. Seems like a perfect example of the more things change, the more they stay the same. 

You Name It

 Today's post looks at how some brand names came to be, let's start with Haagen-Dazs. When the brand was developed in the 1960s they wanted a name that sounded Scandinavian to reflect tradition and craftmanship so they made up the name even though some of the letters aren't used in Danish. How about Haribo? It turn out the name in gummi bears is a portmanteau of the founder's names, Hans Rigel and the bo part comes from his hometown, Bonn. 

Expensive Stops

 An elderly Romanian woman was using a 7.7 pound chunk of amber valued at $1 million as a doorstop. After the woman's death in 1991 a relative noticed the doorstop and thought it might be valuable. He sold the 38-70 million year old nugget to the Romanian state where it now resides in a museum as the world's largest intact piece of amber. A similar case in Michigan where a man had found what he thought was a rock on a farm and used it as a doorstop for 30 years before finally taking it to the Central Michigan University where upon examination it was discovered to be a 22 pound meteorite. The moral of the stories is watch what you stop? 

Amazing Maze

 Are you looking to go big in the corn maze department this fall? If so it might be worth your while to go to Spring Grove, Illinois where The Richardson Adventure Farm hosts the world's largest maze. The maze encompasses 24 acres shaped into a John Deere themed puzzle. In an effort to make the 10 mile feature less intimidating it is divided into 4 challenges complete with checkpoints and bridges allowing people to rise above the corn to get reoriented. Prices through mid October are $24 for adults and $20 for children, after the 24th the prices go up to $30 and $24.

Did You Hear That?

 Time for some mondegreens, those misheard lyrics that are always good for a laugh. "Beast of Burden" by the Rolling Stones has been misheard as "I'll never leave your pizza burning". Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds" lyrics, "caught in a trap" was heard as "caught in a trout". In "Hotel California" "cool wind in my hair" was heard as, "cool whip in my hair". Last but not least was Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" line, "Here we are, now! Entertain us! was heard as, "Here we are now, in containers".

Same Language?

With all the different accents English can be hard to understand even for those who speak the language, then if you add in the expressions that come with the various areas you will likely be confused at best. For instance in England instead of using "dibs" as a way to claim something they use "bagsy". Or how about "give me a tinkler on the blower"? In British English it means to call someone on the telephone, and the tinkler part is how they describe a phone ringing, or at least in the days before ring tones. 

Addresses

Today's post looks at some odd place names making a person wonder how they work as addresses. First up is community in Tennessee called, Nameless. There are two stories about how Nameless was named, one is that when they sent in the application for a post office they left the name space blank so the Post Office Department stamped it as Nameless. The other story is that the residents couldn't agree on a name and one fellow said, "this is a nameless place if I've ever seen one, so leave it be." And they did. The next is a place in Wales with a 58 character name meaning, "St. Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near to the Rapid Whirlpool of Llantysilio of the Red Cave" imagine trying to fit that on an envelope! Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Toy Vote

It's time to vote for the finalists in this years Toy Hall of Fame inductees, you can vote once a day for 1 toy between September 18-25. This years entries include: Apples to Apples, Balloons, Choose Your Own Adventure Books, Hess Toy Trucks, My Little Pony, Phase 10, Pokemon Trading Card Game, Remote Control Vehicles, Sequence, Stick Horse, Trampoline, and Transformers. To vote go to mueseumofplay.org and select National Toy Hall of Fame and scroll to the bottom of the page where you will see a vote now tab. 

  

Is Golden Good?

 Scientists in Spain have engineered a golden lettuce with 30 times the nutrients of regular lettuce. They increased the levels of beta-carotene which is important for several functions in the body and is usually found in carrots, pumpkin, and sweet potato all of which are commonly orange in color, beta-carotene is also what makes the lettuce golden. Nutritious or not genetically enhanced foods are still too new to be thoroughly trustworthy, kind of like putting your life in the hands of AI. 

Cookie Butt

 Most people have heard of trapdoor spiders though unless you live in the southeastern U.S. you've probably never seen one. Not only do they have a unique way of trapping their prey by springing out of their burrows when they feel the vibrations they also have what appears to be an Oreo cookie on their butts. The moral of the story is if you're walking around the southeastern part of the country don't bend over to pick up any Oreos! 

The Annual Igs

 Time for the Ig Nobel Prizes and as usual they don't disappoint. The physics prize went to Jimmy Liao who compared the swimming abilities of dead and live trout finding that dead fish flap their tails to the beat of the current and other things live fish do, bringing him to the conclusion that the water swims the fish! Next up in the chemistry category was seeing how well tubifex worms did swimming through a maze based on their alcohol consumption. Okay...anyone want to tell me how one gets a worm drunk? and then try to get them to negotiate a maze?

Pirate Primer

Talk Like a Pirate Day is coming up this week on the 19th so today's post offers the meaning to some pirate jargon. Though not a real word no pirate should be without Argh in their vocabulary, the meaning is unclear though it was probably first uttered in "Treasure Island" and "Blackbeard the Pirate" in the 1950s. "Shiver Me Timbers" is another example of a phrase never uttered by a real pirate but was used seven times in the book "Treasure Island" to covey surprise, anger or annoyance. So there's a start for all you Scallywags looking to walk the plank on the 19th! 

Honesty the Best Policy?

 When it comes to marketing strategy honesty doesn't work. In 2012 J.C. Penney admitted they used fake prices to attract customers. If they wanted to sell a shirt for $10 they marked it as $20 then marked it down to 50% off on sale. They changed to "everyday low prices" and customers complained until they brought back the phony sale prices. Another example of customers rebelling against change came in April 1985 when Coke launched New Coke and ended up pulling it from the shelves by July of the same year when consumers demanded they return to Coke Classic. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

Feeling Lucky?

 Since it's Friday the 13th it must be time for some facts about that date. The world's economy loses about $900 million every Friday the 13th because of people who are afraid to work or travel. On Friday the 13th in 1979 Bob Renphrey decided to stay in bed on Fridays that fell on the 13th after several previous unlucky accidents like walking through a plate glass door, getting fired, putting his wife in the hospital after hitting her with a stick meant for the dog (was he going to hit the dog? or was he throwing it for the dog?), plus his wife also fell down a flight of stairs. Makes a person wonder if he was abusing both the wife and dog and if so it wasn't bad luck but rather karma coming to call. 

No Soup

 Following the trend of several chain establishments Campbell's Soup is dropping the soup from their official name. On one hand it's not like customers won't recognize the product since it has been around for 155 years, but on the other hand why bother? The expense of the change doesn't seem worthwhile though they feel that by dropping the word soup the change will better represent the breadth of their portfolio, though none of the recently purchased brands bear the Campbell name in any way a person would notice, they also own Prego sauces, Goldfish crackers and Sovos brands. Does this make anyone else think of the "Soup Nazi" of Seinfeld fame?